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Ohio, Tribe Deemed “Substantially Compliant” with the Adam Walsh Act
On September 23, 2009, Ohio became the first state in the nation to be deemed “substantially compliant” with the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA) title of the federal Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 by U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering and Tracking (“SMART Office”).
That same day, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR) in Oregon became the first tribe to be deemed substantially compliant. Click here to view the U.S. Department of Justice’s announcement.
What it means for jurisdictions to be “substantially compliant” with SORNA remains unclear. As of the writing of this column, the “substantial implementation checklist” was removed from the SMART Office website “for updating.” Final federal guidelines for SORNA implementation were published on July 2, 2008.
Jurisdictions across the nation continue to confront numerous legal challenges to state legislative efforts to achieve compliance with SORNA. According to the Ohio Public Defender’s Office, more than 7,000 petitions challenging provisions of Ohio’s Adam Walsh Act implementation legislation have been filed in Ohio lower courts. There have also been more than 90 related appellate court decisions, and the Ohio Supreme Court is scheduled to hear four cases on November 4, 2009.
Moreover, a number of federal district courts have found provisions of SORNA to be unconstitutional. On September 10, 2009, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found that SORNA as applied to former juvenile offenders violates the Ex Post Facto Clause of the U.S. Constitution. That means the law retroactively applies a criminal punishment, which is unconstitutional.
To date, the U.S. Department of Justice has not revised the federal guidelines regarding SORNA implementation. Sections of the Adam Walsh Act are currently scheduled for reauthorization in 2009, but there is no indication that Congress intends to amend any part of the Act.
Pursuant to an order issued by the U.S. Attorney General on May 26, 2009, jurisdictions have until July 26, 2010 to come into compliance with SORNA or risk losing 10 percent of their Byrne Grant funding allocation.
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